Three Times Eliot Showed up at Lindsey's Place
by poestheblackcat
Summary: "Three Times Eliot Showed up at Lindsey's Place Uninvited and Three Times Lindsey Showed up at Eliot's." Split into three each instead of 5&1 because twins should always share. "McDonald Boys" verse.
1. Hand

Three Times Eliot Showed up at Lindsey's Place Uninvited and Three Times Lindsey Showed up at Eliot's. Split into three each instead of 5 + 1 because twins should always share. In the order that the title says, and in chronological order for each twin.

Same verse as "Drunk Dialing, the McDonald Way."

Summary: Lindsey has always enjoyed their impromptu guitar jam sessions over home-cooked dinner and beers, but tonight is going to be tough. The first time Eliot sees Lindsey's missing hand. Set a little after "To Shanshu in LA."

* * *

><p><strong>Three Times Eliot Showed up at Lindsey's Place Uninvited and Three Times Lindsey Showed up at Eliot's<strong>

* * *

><p><span>One: Hand<span>

He's about to dig his key out when he hears it: the gentle strumming of a guitar, his guitar, coming through the door. He groans inwardly and wonders for a minute if he could go find a bar, or maybe rent out a room at a motel somewhere for the night. Anything but face his brother. His brother, who probably already knows he's at the door.

"Ya comin' in or what?"

Yeah, his "distinctive" footsteps probably gave him away.

So he clumsily unlocks the door and enters, calling out, "I told ya not to invite people in without seein' who it is first!"

It smells like hot food, like it always does when Eliot visits. Lindsey can talk someone into locking themselves into a jail cell with a big grin on their face and even thank him for his help, but he's never quite gotten the hang of cooking. Too bad he'll never get the chance to now. Ever tried chopping carrots one-handed? It's damn near impossible.

He makes sure the bandaged stump of his hand is hidden out of sight behind his back. Naturally, Eliot picks up on it right away. The shrewd eyes see the way he's standing, and zone in on his right arm.

"What're you hidin'?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit." Eliot puts the guitar down and walks over. Lindsey fights the urge to back up against the wall, making Eliot pause a little. He's scared plenty of people in his life, but never his brother. Not really. Lindsey's nervous, _freaked_, and Eliot just doesn't get it.

He goes to grab his brother's arm. "Lemme see. Is it somethin' embarrassing?" he teases, then freezes, staring at the empty space where his brother's right hand should be.

"I told you, it's nothing," Lindsey says quietly, gaze burning into the side of Eliot's head. "Nothing there." He's the first person in a very long time to witness Eliot Spencer looking pale and sick without the aid of a concussion.

"What happened?" Eliot croaks.

Lindsey pushes him aside, throws his suit jacket over the back of the couch (after a brief struggle with getting it over the bandage), and stalks towards his bathroom. "Lemme shower first."

"No," Eliot says, characteristically covering up his shock with anger. "No, you tell me now. Tell me what happened to your hand, Lindsey. Lindsey."

Lindsey stops at the bathroom doorway, lets his shoulders slump down and his defenses down, lets his brother see the weariness in his soul. "I just got home from work, Eliot. I need a shower," he repeats tiredly. He's not above using pathos on his brother to avoid talking about this.

Eliot knows it, too, but he also knows what it feels like to _really_ need a shower, even though you might still smell of that morning's shampoo. He slaps the wall with the flat of his hand. "Fine. I'll fry the st- " he stops, meaning to say, "steaks," but realizing that there is no way Lindsey would be able to manage both a knife and a fork with his one hand. "Meat," he finishes lamely, looking at the bathroom tiles instead of his brother's face.

Lindsey twitches a half-smile at him in thanks (both for the food and for the thought) and gently closes the bathroom door in his face. He heaves a sigh as soon as Eliot moves away on the other side. He'd been expecting Eliot to find out sometime, but he hadn't thought it would be so soon, or so unexpectedly.

Aw, who is he kidding? The only way Eliot ever turns up is unexpectedly and uninvited.

Not that Lindsey usually minds. He has always enjoyed their impromptu guitar jam sessions over home-cooked dinner and beers, no matter how tired he'd been when he'd left the office, but tonight is going to be tough.

He sighs. Might as well get it over with, he thinks, as he pours the shampoo directly onto his head.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When he gets out, Eliot's nursing a beer at the table, which is set for two. A second look at the heavily-loaded, steaming plates reveals that both steaks have been chopped up and mixed in with the green beans, and the baked potatoes have been pounded into mashed potatoes. Easy fare for a one-handed person.

Eliot's watching him guardedly, as if waiting for Lindsey to blow up at him for babying him.

Lindsey sits and grabs the open beer bottle next to his plate. "Thanks," he says quietly. "Looks great."

Eliot relaxes and puts his own bottle down. "Yeah, considering what you had in your fridge. How many times I gotta tell ya, microwavable burritos are not food, and they're definitely not breakfast."

They're back on familiar ground now.

"It's not like I have a lot of time to cook," Lindsey fires back through a mouthful of potatoes. "I work a lot."

Eliot snorts. "And I don't?"

They eat in companionable silence interspersed with the usual brotherly teases ("How's your love life, Linny? Still nonexistent?" "At least I don't run the risk of contracting an STD every night, El." "Live and love dangerously, that's my motto." "Live and love foolishly, ya mean.") until dessert. Eliot pulls the apple pie out of the oven and plops a scoop of vanilla ice cream onto each slice. Like with anything Eliot's ever cooked since Mama'd let him flip his first pancake on the old gas stove back in their one-room hovel, it tastes heavenly.

"I'm getting fitted for the prosthetic next week," Lindsey offers up in exchange.

Eliot chews slowly and washes the bite down with a long swallow of beer. "That's good," he says carefully, not knowing what his brother expects him to say.

Lindsey scrapes his plate clumsily with his left hand. Oh, to have been born left-handed. "Yeah, it is. Really give people somethin' to stare at," he snorts.

"How'd it happen?" Eliot tries again, this time with less rage and more concern in his voice.

After a long pause, Lindsey tells him.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"I'm gonna kill him," Eliot growls, prowling the perimeter of Lindsey's living room like a rabid wolf. "I'm gonna pour a gallon o' holy water down his throat an' burn him with crosses all over, an', an' stake him, an', an'- Does garlic work? I'm gonna stuff him with garlic like a damn turkey, an' roast him on a spit 'til he's well-done, an'…"

Lindsey lets him fume. He's sitting on the couch, watching Eliot pacing, with a beer in his one hand and the neck of the old guitar on his lap.

"I'm gonna kill him!" Eliot finally finishes, standing in front of Lindsey, chest heaving and hands clenched in fists.

"No," Lindsey says simply. "No, you can't."

"No, what? You gotta be kiddin' me!" Eliot shouts, "You tellin' me you don't want this guy dead for takin' your hand?"

Lindsey puts his beer down on the coffee table and stands, chest-to-chest with his twin. "I do. Don't get me wrong, I do, Eliot, but you can't go after him."

Eliot's face twists in confusion. "Why the hell not? Is it your bosses?"

Lindsey shakes his head. "No."

"Then tell me why you don't want this bastard dusted!" Eliot huffs, crossing his arms. "Lindsey!"

Lindsey looks away to prepare his reply. Finally, he looks at his brother and holds both his hands up, the left one, still intact, and the missing right. "This," he says, "These, I can spare. But I can't risk losing you to him, too. Don't go after him, Eliot."

Eliot stares at him. "What're you talkin' about?"

"He's a vampire, El. He's dangerous." As he says it, Lindsey can feel the phantom sensation of his right fist curling to match his left.

"Linds, I _kill_ people for a living."

"Don't go after him. He'll smell the blood on you and won't think twice about killing you."

Eliot looks at him, trying to _get_ him, to understand what he means, but he has to look away when Lindsey returns it. He _does_ get it. Like he wouldn't want Lindsey going after Moreau for him, his brother doesn't want Eliot going after Angel for his sake. It's too dangerous. "Lindsey," he tries again, but is cut off.

"El." Their father's old guitar, passed down to the more stationary twin, is pressed into his hands. "Just play the damn guitar."

Eliot shakes his head. "I can't…" His eyes are suddenly not as dry as they should be, and he can't quite meet Lindsey's eyes. "I can't."

Lindsey smiles sadly. "You can. _You_ can. Please. Just play the damn guitar. I wanna hear you play it."

He sits when Eliot takes the instrument gingerly with a sigh, scooting over enough for him to sit next to him.

After trying a few tentative bars, Eliot starts playing.

_They were sitting on his tailgate  
>And she was lovin' on his roughneck<br>And she was talking about running away  
>And he was puffin' on a cigarette<br>Just thinkin' (huh)  
>How am I gonna say goodbye?<em>

And for the first time since his accident, Lindsey relaxes completely, leans back, and closes his eyes, lost in his brother's voice, so similar to his own, but different. They've led separate lives that have left their marks on both of them, changing them. Yet they'll always be twins; nothing could ever change that. Nothing but death, and maybe not even then.

No, he decides, he doesn't want Eliot messing with Angel. Angel's his to kill anyway.

"_Just let me go,"_ croons his brother, and the song ends.

They sit there, Eliot strumming random chords, not really needing to talk.

"Got any new songs you wanna play?"

It's Eliot who asks it, surprising both of them. He looks as startled as Lindsey does, at any rate. Uneasy apprehension crawls into his expression at the prolonged silence.

Then Lindsey smiles, really smiles. "Yeah," he says, "actually, I do."

So he tells him, the chords, the beat, the melody. The song pours out of the guitar, just the way it had sounded in his head. He let his brother be his hands and sings like he hasn't in months.

_Pretty girl on every corner  
>Sunshine turns the sky to gold<br>Warm warm, it's always warm here  
>I can't take the cold<em>

When they're both too tired to sing anymore, Lindsey tells Eliot to take the guitar with him.

Eliot refuses. "I move too much. Can't have things that I value." He runs a calloused, yet gentle hand lovingly over it and continues, "I'll be back to play it, though, so you better not pawn it."

"What if I need the money?" Lindsey jokes, feigning petulance.

"Then spare a quarter to call me before ya do," Eliot grins back. "Can't have this beauty goin' to waste in some pawn shop. Some bastard who don't appreciate music might buy her."

"So you'd rescue the guitar but you wouldn't bail me out of bankruptcy, is that it?"

Eliot shakes his head, hair falling over his shoulder. "No way, man. Definitely the guitar over you."

"Yeah, same here," Lindsey agrees affably, and raises his bottle for Eliot to clink his against.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

AN: The songs were both Christian Kane's: "Let Me Go" and "Pretty as a Picture/L.A Song."


	2. Darla

Summary: Eliot meets Darla. Takes place during Angel ep 2.15 "Reprise." Lindsey doesn't actually appear in this one, but there are a few mentions of him. Also, a little shorter and more upbeat than the last chapter.

* * *

><p><span>Two: Darla<span>

Eliot has a new set of keys at least every month, but one key in his bunch never changes, no matter where he goes, or how many different rooms and cars he rents. It's the key to his brother's bachelor pad.

Lindsey had proudly given him a duplicate the first time he'd gone away to live on his own in the tiny dorm room he'd shared with a Bio major back in college. It had become something of a tradition every time Lindsey moved into a new place, each one's rent a little more expensive than the last.

Eliot uses the key to get inside Lindsey's newest lodgings, a penthouse apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows that Eliot insists are dangerous to no avail. Lindsey only smiles and says they're protection enough against the kind of visitors he's likely to get, which is true for the most part.

The lights are on, which means…Oh, that's not Lindsey. Uh-uh, too _curvy_ and _blonde_ to be Lindsey.

The blond stops in the middle of saying, "Lindsey, you're home early…" She tilts her head, slightly confused, and he swears she sniffs the air a little. "You're not Lindsey."

Quick on the uptake. That's his brother for ya, always going for the smart _(hot)_ girls.

"No, I am not," he agrees with a charming smile as he moseys his way to Lindsey's very well-stocked wet bar.

"Lindsey didn't tell me he had a twin brother," she says. Her voice is silky-smooth, like a cat's. And the way she moves, there's something…off about it, about her. Something _animal_.

Eliot pours a drink and laughs. "Darlin', he didn't tell me he had a girlfriend."

She takes the glass out of his hand. "It's Darla." She smiles at him, slow and long, then takes a sip of the scotch, keeping her smoldering gaze on him as she does so.

Eliot makes another drink for himself, whiskey this time, and toasts her before quaffing it in one go. "Well, Darla, I'm Eliot. And you are way out of my brother's league," he says, leaning on the counter.

She looks away coyly. "I'm out of yours, too."

Eliot shrugs, takes another sip. "That you are. I'd offer to make dinner, but I don't think you'd like my kinda food unless I was the food."

She's too old to be startled enough to jump, but she looks over at him quickly, reassessing. "You can tell?"

He shrugs again. The way you hold yourself is very distinctive," he offers as an explanation.

"And you're not afraid?" she questions, sidling up close to him. She can hear his heart pumping, but it's not the hammering _bu-dum-bu-dum_ of a man who knows he's about to be dinner, nor is it the besotted _thump-bu-dum-thump_ in Lindsey's chest. It's an even _thump-thump-thump_.

No, he's not afraid of her, says the small smirk lingering on his lips.

Darla laughs, the sound twinkling in the air like broken glass. "You are a very interesting man, Eliot McDonald."

"And you are a very interesting woman," he replies, "So Darla, tell me, why is my brother hiding a vampire in his apartment?"


	3. Betrayed

Summary: Eliot needs a place to hole up after the events of "The First David Job."

* * *

><p><span>Three: Betrayed<span>

He supports himself against the door, works up the strength to knock, and promptly falls into Lindsey's waiting arms when the door opens.

"Hiya, Linny," he says sheepishly up into his brother's disapproving, slightly annoyed face.

"Eliot," Lindsey sighs. "Come on in. It's not like I wasn't planning on buying myself a new doormat anyway. Ya know, after you ruined it by dripping bodily fluids all over it the last time you came to 'visit.' Blood is supposed to stay _inside_ your body, not leak out of it," he gripes as he _gently_ manhandles Eliot onto his sofa.

"I'm not bleeding this time," Eliot points out helpfully. He glances down the length of his body and amends, "Much."

"Yeah, right," Lindsey says, running his hands through his hair in exasperation. "Lemme see. How bad?" He kneels down beside Eliot and tugs his shirt up to look at the damage.

"Broken ribs, concussion."

"And?" Lindsey levels a sharp look at Eliot. "That's all? You never come here to get patched up over something like this. You coulda taken care of this yourself, couldn't ya?"

Eliot averts his gaze away from the probing look Lindsey's giving him. "Wounded pride."

"Tell me," Lindsey orders and pulls out the well-stocked first aid kit. It's not until he's got Eliot's ribs wrapped up and has started dabbing peroxide on the numerous cuts littering his body that Eliot starts talking.

"You were right, Linny," he says roughly, the words slightly slurred from the head wound. "Teams can't be trusted."

Lindsey's hands still in the act of saturating another cotton ball. "Who? Who betrayed you?"

Eliot doesn't answer, just closes his eyes and leans back against the sofa, so Lindsey fires the question at him again. "Who was it? Ford?"

Eliot sighs. "Sophie."

"Devereaux?" Lindsey growls. According to his sources, the grifter had worked on teams before, but her rep is more self-serving bitch than team player. Despite what his brother might have said to him about her before, it seems she hasn't changed much. "Want me to get rid of her?"

Eliot frowns, and stops himself from shaking his head just in time. "No, leave 'er alone."

Lindsey snorts. "She sold ya down the river, and you want me to leave her alone? What's wrong with you? Goin' soft?"

Eliot pries open swollen eyelids and levels a look at Lindsey. "Want me to kill Lorne for ya?"

Lindsey flinches and his hand twitches, wanting to trace the scars on his chest. "No."

"'Cause he was your friend?" Eliot says softly. "Sophie's still my friend, Linds. I just…I just can't work with her anymore. That's all. I don't want her dead. If she's ever in trouble, I'll be there. I just…I can't right now…We're supposed to scatter, six months, but I don't know..."

"Yeah, okay," Lindsey nods, splashes some more peroxide on a cut on Eliot's arm. "Anyway, you know you're welcome to hole up with me as long as you need to."

Eliot smiles as much as he can without moving the cheek with the purple bruise blooming on it. "I know. Thanks, Linny. I'll be out of your hair by next week."

Lindsey scowls at his brother. "One week? No, you're staying two. At least. That's final. You need time to heal."

Eliot snorts, and winces at the twinge it causes in his abdomen. "You know me, I get restless."

"There's a huge organic farmer's market three blocks east on weekends," Lindsey says in a much-used wheedling tone, while industriously tossing the used cotton balls into the trash bin to be incinerated later (to minimize the risk of them being used for malicious spellwork) and putting the other medical paraphernalia away in their box. "I bet you'd find it pretty interestin'. Looks like somethin' right up your alley. Organic tomatoes the size of a baseball. Beef that was mooing yesterday."

Eliot glares at him, but doesn't really mean it; he sees the bribe for what it truly is – real concern for his welfare. "Ya learned how to cook yet?" he grouses.

"Heck no," Lindsey replies. "Why else would I let you stay with me, if not to cook?"

Eliot rolls his eyes. "You need a wife. Can't find anyone who'll put up with ya?"

Lindsey tosses him an ice pack. "Actually, I can find women just fine, thank you very much. It's just that when I tell them about my assassin brother who likes to come and visit whenever there's someone on his trail, they all seem to back off for some strange reason."

"Ass," Eliot says, not bothering to muffle it. He wants his brother to hear it from the bathroom, where he's rummaging in his medicine cabinet.

"Uh-huh," Lindsey calls back, "Tylenol or Vicodin, jerkwad?"

"Tylenol. Thanks, Linny," he says as he catches the bottle without looking at it.

"Anytime." Lindsey sets a glass of water down. "So what's for dinner?"

He gets a rude, bruised-knuckled hand gesture in reply that he laughs at as he picks up the phone to order take-out from the Chinese place downstairs.

* * *

><p>AN: And that ends the "Three Times Eliot Showed up at Lindsey's Place Uninvited" part of this. Now for Lindsey's turn.<p>

Review Replies to partypony- Thank you so much for your wonderful, in-depth reviews. I just realized that I hadn't replied to them, and since I don't have any other way of doing it, I'll just do it here. Wow, five whole minutes to imagine those heartbeats? I'm glad I made the distinction instead of the "lub-dub" I had before! ;D Lorne/Caritas, huh? That's not my first request for the situation, and I'm going to have to say, "So sorry, but I have something different planned." But I might do Lorne&Caritas (and Lindsey after Lorne shoots him) in another story. How about that? _Maybe_ (because I have so many other things planned and my ADD might cut in at any moment).


	4. Lawyer

Summary: Lindsey bails Eliot out from certain death. Literally. Very pre-series for both (before Lindsey signed his soul over to Wolfram), and if you want to know where it belongs in my verse, it takes place a little while after "Drunk Dialing, the McDonald Way."

* * *

><p><span>One: Lawyer<span>

To this day, Eliot still isn't quite sure how it all happened, but he does remember this:

Numerous injuries and too many opponents at once had gotten him caught. If he'd been in the US, France, or some other first-world country, he would've gotten some pretty decent medical care, but facts were, he was in Myanmar. Myanmar, where he'd killed, stolen, and well, pretty much thumbed his nose at all the high-ranking and oft-changing officials there were.

Myanmar was not the place to be if he was injured, and that was as a free man. As a prisoner, it was hell.

He'd been close to unconscious from the "medical attention" the prison guards were giving him, which basically amounted to kicking him in the ribs and head with their steel-toed boots and police batons, and shouting, "Had enough, bastard American thief?" at him.

This wasn't anything new; he'd had this treatment at many facilities across the globe, and this workover session wasn't any different from all the others. What did make it different was that just when he was about to black out, the sound of running footsteps came down the dark, narrow hallway that stank of blood and piss, and the out-of-breath, worried voice of one of the lower-ranked guards said, "Stop! You have to stop. This man has a _lawyer_."

Funnily enough, the beating did stop, but only because the other two guards were completely baffled. "A lawyer?" one of them spit, "What's he need a lawyer for?"

"That," said a very familiar voice that _did not_ belong in a Burmese prison cell, "is exactly what is wrong with the court and prison systems here. You!" it barked. "Straighten up. What is your name?"

The boots that had so recently been digging into Eliot's rib cage shuffled and clicked to an approximate attention stance. "Guard Hka Suu, _Saya_ Lawyer."

"Hm, that'll do," the voice said, in frankly, very crappy Burmese, "And you?"

"Guard Kyi Mya, _Saya_ Lawyer," another guard said stiffly, as if saying it with all his muscles tightened painfully.

"Guard Ohnmar Sanda Naing, _Saya_ Lawyer," said the last man, eager to please.

"Did I ask?" Lindsey replied coldly. "You two, get a stretcher. And you, fetch a doctor. Not the prison doctor, a proper one."

"Yes, sir," the men said, and scrambled out of the cell, forgetting to lock the door behind them in their haste to get away from the foreign lawyer.

Once they were gone, familiar footsteps made their way towards Eliot, crouching down next to him. Gentle hands smoothed his hair away from his hot forehead and cradled his bruised and bleeding cheek.

"El?" Lindsey whispered. "You there?"

Eliot mustered up the strength to say, "Here," hoarsely, before it got to be too much and he started coughing. He felt the bones shift in his abdomen, and tasted the blood on his lips.

Lindsey swore, and his hands ghosted over Eliot's ribs. "I'm gonna getcha outta here, alright? Just hang on."

"Had worse," Eliot croaked, "Still alive."

"Yeah," Lindsey said, "Stubborn bastard."

"Don't be sayin' that about Mama," Eliot said, or rather, tried to say.

Lindsey got the joke anyway. "Not funny, you ass."

"Damn funny from where I'm at," Eliot wheezed. Lindsey'd scared the living daylights out of those prison guards without lifting a finger. 'S funny.

Lindsey huffed, sounding pleased and embarrassed. "Yeah, kinda, I guess. What's takin' 'em so long?" he growled.

As if on command, running footsteps pattered back and two men shuffled in with a dirty stretcher.

Lindsey wrinkled his nose distastefully at the stains, but merely said, "Put it down next to him."

There was some more shuffling before the stretcher clunked down next to Eliot. Lindsey slid his hands carefully under his shoulders and said, "You, take his legs, gently, _gently_, you incompetent imbecile!" and when the sudden movement made Eliot grimace, he let loose with a long string of swear words (very impressive, considering he must have learned Burmese on the flight over) questioning the validity of the man's general classification as a human.

The next move up into the air was smoother, but the descent was bumpy and painful, ultimately ending with the murky grey edges of the world closing into total blackness.

When he came to again, he was in a warm bed with soft sheets and a down coverlet, and his survival instinct alerted him to the fact that someone else was in the room with him, but there wasn't anything he could do about it because his body was telling him that if he even thought about moving, he'd regret it very, very much. It didn't matter that there was someone there anyway; the same instincts told him that it was only Lindsey.

He must have made a noise, or maybe it was the same feeling Eliot had whenever he knew Lindsey needed something, because suddenly, his brother was hovering over him with a straw coming out of a cool glass of water that looked more delicious than water had any right to, and there was a damp washcloth being dragged over his face.

And _damn_, if that didn't feel good.

He tried to say something, but only managed on the second try after prying his tongue loose from the roof of his mouth. "Where?"

"Strand Hotel in Yangon," Lindsey replied, rinsing the washcloth out in a bowl of water and wringing it out before gently stroking it over the more bruised parts of Eliot's body. "How're you feeling?"

It took Eliot exactly 4.3 seconds longer than usual to process this piece of information (completely bypassing the concerned question because Lindsey's an old worrywart anyway). "Wha'?" he said, risking a frown with his swollen face, "'S 'spensive." Priciest hotel in town, actually.

Lindsey's hands stopped moving and he actually looked sheepish. The tips of his ears even turned pink, a sure sign of embarrassment. "Yeah. I mighta told everyone here that I'm a lawyer from Wolfram and Hart. Had to play the part. To ya know, get you out in one piece."

Eliot stared at his brother, aghast. "You _know_ you're a crappy actor, Linny. How'd you pull it off?"

Lindsey grinned, still pink, and friggin' proud of himself. "Maybe I am a bad actor. But I'm also an expert liar, as you so often tell me. And it wasn't a complete act. I am a lawyer, _ut expedio_, I have a law degree, and I do work at Wolfram. I never told 'em what position, just let 'em assume for themselves."

Eliot ignored the Latin because that was just Linny showing off, and went straight to the teasing. "Huh. Con artist."

Lindsey shrugged and picked up the washcloth again. "Runs in the family, you might say."

The cool cloth felt so _good_ on his hot skin. "Hrmmh. Still coulda gotten out without your help," he muttered.

Lindsey snorted. "Yeah, sure. You know, your execution was set for yesterday," he tacked on conversationally.

"What day's it today?" How long had he been out?

As usual, his brother knew exactly what he'd meant. "You've been out for three days. It's Sunday."

Eliot grunted. "Hate Sundays."

"Yeah. Me, too." Lindsey paused. "And Tuesdays. I hate Tuesdays with a passion."

Eliot snorted air through his nose, trying not to use his stomach muscles to do the task, but making sure it had the effect he wanted. "Who the hell talks like that? 'With a passion'?"

"Shuddup, you cocksuckin' dick," Lindsey growled and snapped the washcloth exactly on the one spot on Eliot's body that didn't have a bruise on it.

"'S more like it," Eliot replied, even though he knew his brother was only appeasing him to get him to go back to sleep.

"Get some rest, El," Lindsey said, sounding tired and amused. "You look like a horror movie reject. As in, one of the rotting, flesh-eatin' zombies, not one o' the victims."

Eliot _was_ ready to nod off again, but he didn't like admitting it to Lindsey, so he merely told him to go do something in a way that would have gotten him a good ass-whupping from Mama, had she still been alive, God rest her soul.

"That's physically impossible," Lindsey answered, completely deadpan. "And _you're welcome_. Don't expect me to keep bailing you out. I don't have the funds for that."

Eliot's unswollen eye popped back open. He hadn't _asked_ Lindsey to fly out to Myanmar. "Then get outta that mail room."

"I did. I'm an Executive Assistant now, thanks for askin'."

"The hell's that?"

Lindsey shrugged. "Damned if I know. Get paid more, but not enough to live like this every time you get your ass in trouble, that's for sure."

"Toldya, you don't have to."

"'Course I do; you're m' brother." This was said in the most matter-of-fact way possible, because it was true and they both knew it meant you didn't even blink at laying down your life for the other, even though the ensuing ruckus and mother-henning would be extremely annoying to deal with later. It was ingrained in the both of them; brother's in trouble, get him out of it. Simple.

Lindsey always did bail Eliot out whenever he ended up captured and couldn't bust himself out within twenty-four hours, which was still not very often, but often enough that he always appreciated the non-violent way out. It was pretty funny to see the wardens of various prisons practically kowtow them out of their facilities out of fear for their lives (or the wrath of a Wolfram and Hart lawyer, Eliot was never sure).

And even these days, although Lindsey doesn't practice law anymore and is on the run himself, Eliot knows that he's still keeping an eye out for him because his brother always turns up whenever he's in trouble.

Sometimes, he even looks forward to it.

* * *

><p>AN: My apologies to Burmese prisons. I'm sure they're not <em>that<em> bad. But then again, I've never been to Myanmar, much less in a prison there, so I can't say for sure. But this version was completely fictionalized for the sake of hurt!Eliot, as were the prison guards. None of this was based on any real people or prisons.

Also, Eliot hates Sundays and Lindsey hates Tuesdays because those are the days their respective shows first aired.

Latin translation because Lindsey is a stuck-up prick:

_Ut expedio_ = to clarify

Burmese:

_Saya_ = Teacher, used for males of senior rank and age, according to Wiki

* * *

><p>Thank you so much for reviewing, everyone! I really appreciate the thought.<p>

Partypony Review Reply: I _always_ respond with a PM when the review is more than a few words, or when there's a question/request involved. Reviews with less than that may or may not get a response, not because they're any less appreciated, but because I feel silly replying with a one-word "Thanks!" every chapter. I used to do that, but it seemed repetitive after a while, hehe...I think I've had a lot of training in brother fics from all those years of being a SPN fanficcer. You get a lot of brotherly scenes in that fandom (understatement). Writing Eliot and Lindsey as brothers allows me to give the characters a different side than what they would show to their coworkers/archenemies/the world. More vulnerability, more trust, more bantering, being able to be comfortable with each other, and then there's the protectiveness that comes from their connection. Of course, being the shades-of-grey characters we know and love, they have very different ways of getting back at whoever hurt their brother than we (the layman) would. That's really fun to write...Lorne/Caritas - Great. Now I have an idea and I must write it. The plot bunny says so. (He's fluffy and lavender and is named Bruce.)...As for your review to my other story, "Pink," the part you really liked (Eliot wanting to help Sam) was an idea I borrowed from the story mentioned in the AN. I loved it so much that I wrote my own version of it (but I changed it enough that you probably wouldn't recognize it anyway...I hope). Thank you so much for reading! And really, that last bit is for all you nosy people who read my review reply to my favorite anon. reviewer, too. ;D


	5. Epiphany

Summary: Lindsey doesn't have a plan after the events of "Dead End" but ends up honing in on Eliot, who is, of course, fighting in the middle of a war-ridden third-world country. That's where he's at home, after all.

* * *

><p><span>Two: Epiphany<span>

Lindsey says his goodbyes to Angel, thinking,_ hey, maybe the guy isn't so bad after all, once you get past that self-righteous attitude and the hair_, and drives off in his trusty old '56 Ford. He soon changes his mind when he gets pulled over and discovers to his dismay that the bastard had stuck a sign saying "COPS SUCK" onto the back of his truck.

Friggin' childish, cheatin' Eurotrash bloodsucker.

He drives the night through, and when it's morning, he pulls over at a truck stop to fill up. As he's paying for the gas, the thought crosses his mind that for the first time in years, for the first time in almost his entire life, he doesn't know what to do with himself. He's always had a plan (and a backup or five), be it to earn enough money to buy his little sister the doll she wanted for Christmas, or to get into a good college and make something of himself, to show the world that white trash doesn't have to stay that way, to climb the corporate ladder, to get revenge on Angel...

And now? Now, he doesn't have a plan. He's got nothing but his truck, and the small duffel and guitar in the back. Well, that and all the money he's hidden away over the years for a rainy day. And he's got two hands again. It's a strange sensation, not having to use his left hand for everything like he's gotten used to doing. He's caught himself picking things up with the left more often than he remembers to use his right.

He's two-handed, but he has no plan. He feels a weird combination of liberation and uselessness. He doesn't have anywhere to go. No goal. No direction. No end in sight. Just him (and Bradley Scott's unwillingly donated right hand).

So he drives. He drives until he gets to an airport, where he peruses the departure board and picks Nepal for absolutely no reason at all. He has numerous passports, each with a different identity, so he chooses one at random and boards the plane. He still doesn't know why he's going to a third-world country on a whim, but it feels good to not know, to not have to do something on someone else's orders. When he lands, he wanders around the city, taking in the foreign sights and smells, tasting the local cuisine offered by venders eager to sell their wares to the American with the fat wallet. Somehow, his journey though the winding alleyways and narrow streets ends suddenly in the middle of a war zone.

Bullets fly, and men, civilians and soldiers alike, shout in Nepali. Bewildered, Lindsey ducks down behind a parked pick-up loaded with bullet-riddled burlap bags of rice. The long white grains stream down onto the pavement next to him, a whole month's meals for a multi-generational Nepalese family wasted in the mud.

He wonders vaguely why in the world he'd picked Nepal of all places to go after quitting his job at Wolfram and Hart. Why here? And then he wonders, was leaving the right thing to do? Well, obviously, from a moral standpoint, it was, but was it the best thing for him? Was it- ?

Oh. Huh. That's why he'd subconsciously decided that Nepal was the place to be.

Around the corner of a dented vehicle that has seen much better days, he catches sight of a long-haired figure systematically making his way though the crowd of gun-wielding men with a series of well-placed kicks and punches.

Eliot.

He looks like he's having the time of his life. He's a blur amongst the men, arms and legs and hair flying, a feral grin on his lips and a predatory look in his eyes. Lindsey hears the name of an ancient war deity whispered hoarsely and laughs inwardly. Eliot in his element is a terrifying sight. Even Lindsey, who knows exactly what his brother is capable of, finds the wild-eyed berserker in front of him slightly unnerving.

There are bodies lying in the street, most unconscious, many injured, and a few dead. Men still attempt to fight, but most succeed only in tripping over the bodies underfoot in their frenzy to get away from the mad white man. One is foolish enough to point his gun at him.

Eliot sees it, and freezes. The soldier is far enough away that he can't unarm him, but still close enough that the bullet can't miss. Eliot's about to move, dive sideways to avoid getting shot, but even Lindsey, with his lesser experience, can tell that it won't be fast enough because the gunman is jittery from fear and adrenaline, and he's pulling the trigger…

Uh-uh. No one's shooting his brother. Not today.

Lindsey mutters a few words and makes a small movement with his hand as Eliot dives over one of the dead men, pulling the corpse up in front of him as a shield. The gun goes off, but the bullet merely falls to the ground under the soldier's feet with a tiny _ping._

Eliot looks as astonished as the shooter does, while Lindsey smirks in smug satisfaction. Eliot takes the opportunity the man's pause gives him to get behind a more solid barrier than the human shield as the whispers of supernatural spirits turn into panicked shouts of sorcery. Pretty soon, the crowd disperses, not wanting to anger any deities by well, _shooting_ at one.

Lindsey cackles somewhat hysterically from his own hiding place. Eliot as a war god. That's a classic.

When enough people have fled the scene of the small battle for Lindsey to feel safe enough to emerge from hiding, he saunters over to his brother's hidey hole. Eliot looks up at him with a confused expression, as if he's wondering what exactly Lindsey is doing in Nepal, of all places, wearing a not-a-suit.

Lindsey snorts and puts out a hand to help Eliot up.

Eliot finds his voice. "You? Here? How? What?" he stutters. Then he notices which arm Lindsey had hauled him up with. "Hand?" He looks at Lindsey, thoroughly baffled. "Hand?"

"Hand," Lindsey agrees, opening and closing it to show that it actually works.

Eliot grabs it, and examines it carefully, lingering over the scar circling his wrist and the place where there _should_ be a tiny mole. "What the hell?" he says softly.

"They wanted to reward me for all the work I did for them. That translates roughly to, 'Keep it up and we'll give you anything you've ever wanted,'" Lindsey snorts, taking the hand back and rubbing at the scar himself. "Literally, anything, I guess."

"That's not your hand," Eliot says, shakily, looking slightly creeped out. "That's not _your_ hand."

Lindsey smiles sourly. "You're right. It belonged to this guy I knew back in my mail room days. He disappeared, and I never saw him again until the other night, when Angel and I found a whole roomful of people they were using as live organ donors for the special Wolfram and Hart health care program."

Eliot grimaces, horrified at the nefarious workings of the law firm, then frowns, recognizing the name. "Angel? The guy who cut it off in the first place?"

"Yeah." Lindsey looks around the street, looking for stragglers. "Come on, let's get outta here. I went to Caritas and The Host told us to work together," he continues, as they walk away, up a small hill in the road to where houses line the streets instead of businesses, "so we did and we found that place. It was…I've seen a lot of shit, but that was just plain wrong. They gave me the hand and didn't tell me where it came from, but I got suspicious when I kept writing 'Kill kill kill' on everything. Turns out, Bradley, the- the guy it belonged to, wanted me to kill him when we got there. He wanted to die. So I pulled the plug and we torched the place. Angel's still a hypocritical dick, even though he did help me out."

Eliot slowly turns that over in his head. "What did Wolfram and Hart have to say about that?" he asks, worried for his brother's safety. You can't just piss off evil incorporated and think you can get away with it.

Lindsey barks out a short, cynical laugh. "They gave me the promotion for VP of the department instead of Lilah."

Eliot stares and an eyebrow goes up. "Oh. They did. That's…Uh. Good for you."

Lindsey nods. "Yeah. But I turned it down and quit instead. I got evil hand issues, see? It even grabbed Lilah's ass on the way out. Evil." He holds his hand up and wriggles the fingers, then socks his brother's arm with a smirk that turns into a grin at the dumbfounded expression on Eliot's face. Like any good sibling, he loves to shock his twin, especially as he seldom has the chance to, with such a well-traveled brother like Eliot.

"You quit? You? _You_ quit? But that was your dream job, man. You okay? Ya know, in the head?"

The smile slides off of Lindsey's face. "Dream jobs aren't supposed to make you feel so dirty you feel like you have to take three showers a day. I guess I'll…I dunno. I'll find something. Maybe get into your line of work, huh?" He bumps Eliot's shoulder with his.

Eliot chuckles softly. "No."

"Why not?" asks Lindsey, slightly offended. "Don't think I have what it takes?"

Eliot shakes his head. "No, you have what it takes if you wanna do it, just…it's not the best job in the world, ya know? 'Hi, I'm Eliot and I'm a hitter-slash-retrieval-specialist.' 'What the hell is that?' 'Oh, I hit people for a living. And steal things.' Good salary, if you're good, and I'm one of the best, but it's not exactly respectable."

"You really think I care about respectable at this point?" Lindsey says, throwing both arms up. "I'm done. I got to where I wanted to go, and found that all that glitters ain't gold. It's- It's pixie dust. Only the pixies are soul-sucking, evil lawyers and bureaucrats instead of a tiny hot chick in a green dress." He blinks, thinks over what he just said, and wrinkles his nose. "That was a weird-ass analogy."

Eliot laughs and slings his arm over Lindsey's shoulder. He gets it; of all the people in the world, he's probably one of the very few who would get it.e gteH What's money and power if you're drowning in blood? "There is definitely somethin' wrong with you, Linny, but I think I like this new you. I think you finally got that stick out of your ass. Let's go find a bar and a coupla willin' women, huh? Just to celebrate."

Lindsey shoots an amused look at his brother. "I don't think any bar's gonna want us in it. You're a war god, now, ya know? According to the locals, at least. They're scared shitless of ya."

"War god," Eliot chuckles. "What will they think of next?"

Lindsey shakes his head. "Crazy, huh? It's like they've never seen a guy stop a bullet with the power of his mind before," he says, eyes twinkling at the memory of the look on the soldier's face.

Eliot grins back at him. "Thanks for that, man. One less hole in my hide."

"Anytime, bro," he replies. "So when can we start training?"

Eliot's head whips around to look at him. "What training?"

Lindsey pats him on the chest with the flat of his new hand, "You're teaching me how to fight your way instead of in the courtroom," he says, and jogs on ahead towards a bar on the other side of the street. "Ya know what? I wanna get drunk after all. I wanna get so drunk I don't know my own name. 'Cause I am a free man!" He hoots, his head thrown back and arms outstretched. Doing so earns strange looks from the locals, but they've seen enough drunken Americans to know one when they see one, so they move on.

Eliot scowls at Lindsey and charges behind him, right at his heels. "Why would you wanna learn how to fight? You never wanted to before. I seem to remember 'the pen is mightier than the sword' bein' tossed around once or twice or twenty times, along with some fancy-pants Latin."

"I got a lotta enemies now," Lindsey says, deflating, all his giddiness at getting _out_ abated. "Think it might be a good idea to be able to kill, or at least incapacitate, anyone who comes after me. Since you can't hang around babysitting me all the time."

Eliot looks at him, assessing. He nods once and heads inside the bar. "Don't order anything stronger than beer. I don't want you hung over when I wake you up in the morning. We start at four."

Lindsey checks his watch and gapes after him in disbelief. "It's two a.m. now! Eliot!"

"You wanna train, you train my way," Eliot throws over his shoulder as he grins wolfishly at the busty young waitress.

He loves spending time with his brother. _Especially_ if he gets to boss him around. Maybe he can even get Linny to call him _sensei_. That would be _awesome._

But seriously, he's glad that Lindsey actually wants to learn how to defend himself because it's a tough world out there, especially for wanted men like him, and now Lindsey. Knowing that his brother can take care of himself will be a huge burden off of his shoulders, even though he doesn't much like the sound of this new development. But more than that, he's glad that Lindsey finally got out. It's tough, taking that step, and it takes guts to go against an entity like Wolfram and Hart.

"Even two hours of sleep _without_ the alcohol is unreasonable," Lindsey grumbles from next to him.

Eliot sets a beer down in front of him. "Drink up. You got a long day ahead of ya…starting in an hour and fifty-three minutes."

He chuckles and musses his brother's hair when he faceplants onto the wooden table. "Don't worry, Linny. I got your back. That reminds me. Better stock up on aspirin and ice packs," he adds on thoughtfully. "Princess band-aids, too."

Lindsey moves to shove him off of his stool with one hand. "Jerk."

Eliot's expecting it, so he grabs the arm as it comes by him and yanks it in the same direction. A second later, Lindsey's a pile of bewildered brother on the floor.

"First lesson," Eliot says, taking a pull of his beer, "Use your enemy's strength against him. Now get up and drink your beer."

* * *

><p>Review Reply to PP: Whoopsies, I forgot to add this on when I first posted this chapter. Hope this catches you before you read it.<p>

OMG, your review was hilarious. Thank you so much! So. Why aren't you an author on this site? Because you have a definite flair for humorous writing. I have a question RE your review, though: When you fainted and fell out of your chair, was that in goo form, or in human form? I'm having a hard time imagining goo falling out of a chair. Dripping down, maybe, but no, not _falling_...The Latin was a hit? Okay, duly noted and added to the long fic I'm currently writing right now...Also, nitpickiness: Are your neighbors still considered neighbors if they're five blocks away? I wouldn't consider someone whom I can hear squeeing from five blocks away a _neighbor_. Someone to shoot tranquilizers at, maybe, but neighbor?... ;D

By the way, _thanks_ for sending Bruce the plot bunny those cookies/carrots/brownies. He's going like Parker on caffeine and chocolate now. _Thanks_. /sarcasm

Seriously, thank you for reading and leaving such loooong reviews!


	6. Domesticated

Summary: Lindsey is sure that there is something wrong with his brother. He has a team, a fully-stocked refrigerator, a television set, and a garden on the roof. He's become…domesticated. Takes place after "The Carnival Job." This story may also be referred to as "The Time Parker Almost Met Fake Eliot."

* * *

><p><span>Three: Domesticated<span>

Lindsey lets himself into Eliot's apartment with the key his brother had given him the last time they'd seen each other, and looks around. Huh. The place actually looks lived in, as it should, since Eliot has seemingly made Boston his home base. Eliot, for whom the word "home" has always meant Kentucky, where they grew up, or alternately, wherever Lindsey happens to be at the time.

Not counting the first eighteen years of his life, Eliot had never stayed in one place for more than six months until he'd met his team. Now, he's been working out of Boston for the better part of the last three years.

"_Whatever happened to 'I get restless'?"_ Lindsey thinks, as he raids Eliot's fridge.

Nothing already made. Tough luck. He checks the freezer. Ah-hah! Jackpot. "POT ROAST 7-13-11," the neat label on the aluminum foil-wrapped package says in Eliot's precise handwriting. There's enough for two.

He takes it out, removes the foil, and dumps the frozen meat into a microwavable-looking plate. Then he presses the right buttons on the machine and sets it to defrosting dinner.

And now for veggies. Mama had raised them to mind that they ate a good amount of vegetables alongside the meat, and while Lindsey _tries_ to stick to the rule by ordering stir-fry with the orange chicken, Eliot is more fastidious in maintaining a healthy menu.

Salad. Lindsey can manage salad. When Eliot had been training Lindsey a few years back, he'd had had him slicing and chopping things with all kinds of knives and blades (like, for example, forget shooting an apple off of a guy's head; according to Eliot, you don't have complete mastery of aiming until you can peel the apple while it's still on the poor bastard's head), so he's good at the prepping stage of cooking. It's the actual mixing the ingredients and cooking them that's the problem.

Somehow, the kitchen always erupts in strange-smelling smoke whenever Lindsey attempts anything more complicated than nuking frozen or canned food.

Cooking just isn't simple and straightforward like magic is.

So he pulls out the vegetables that he recognizes (which means he bypasses the knobby light green thing that looks like a species of lower-level demon), washes them, and gets slicing.

Yeah, he can totally put a salad together. Just cut and toss, right?

Still, he's oddly proud of himself when the microwave dings and he has a clumsy-looking salad to serve along with the pot roast.

He's got everything ready by the time Eliot lets himself into the apartment.

"Nurse Gail still have magic fingers?" Lindsey asks.

"Hell yeah," Eliot says, rotating his shoulders and rolling his neck. "She is one damn good Healer."

"Of course she is," Lindsey responds, handing him an open beer, "I recommended her."

"Yeah, thanks for mentioning that _every time_ I tell you I've been to see her," Eliot snarks as he sits down to eat. "What are you doing here anyway?"

Lindsey shrugs. "I got an alert from the network that said that Eliot Spencer has been incapacitated and won't be able to fight back as well for a while, so if anyone's interested in ordering a hit on him, now's the time to do it."

"Roper," Eliot growls. "I'm gon' kill him next time I see 'im."

"What?" Lindsey snorts, "That tiny Californian? _He_ got you bad enough that you had to go see Gail?"

Eliot scowls at the jibe. "No, that was the carnival ride. Roper just happened to be there."

Lindsey throws his head back and laughs. "Carnival ride?" he says incredulously. "Now that's a story I _have_ to hear."

"'S not funny," Eliot grumbles, hiding the twitch of amusement his lips are trying to make by taking a bite. "It friggin' hurt."

Lindsey notices the tiny rattle over their heads a second after Eliot does. He slides his knife out of its sheath noiselessly and watches the air vent near which the sound had come, waiting for the right moment to strike.

He's startled when Eliot clamps a hand over his wrist and growls out, "Parker, get outta my house!"

"'_Parker, get outta my house,'" _a woman's voice mocks from the ceiling. _"It's not a house anyway. It's an apartment."_

Eliot rolls his eyes. "Yeah. And it's mine, Parker. Out," he says firmly.

"_Fine,"_ the mysterious voice mutters, _"It's not like you were having sex with the hot nurse or anything. You were just talking to yourself."_

Lindsey mouths, _"What?"_ to Eliot, who shakes his head and makes the universal sign for "crazy."

"Parker. If you're not out of here in one minute, I'm gonna call Hardison and tell him you sleep in his air vents every night. You know as well as I do, he ain't gonna like that."

There's an outraged gasp, and then there's nothing.

Eliot watches the ceiling with a smirk for almost a minute longer, seemingly tracking the thief's progress out of his apartment with his eyes. Lindsey can't tell exactly where she is, but he senses it when she makes it out.

"You got women droppin' in to visit at night, and you tell 'em to go away?" Lindsey teases. "That's not like you."

Eliot snorts. "Parker's more like an annoying little sister I can't get rid of."

Lindsey looks at him. "Sister?"

Eliot pauses, immediately thinking of the two younger sisters they'd lost all those years ago, and knows that Lindsey is remembering the exact same thing. "Not like that," he says thickly. "Not like them, really, but well, she's like a kid, and she's a friend, and I like her and she's hot, but I don't wanna sleep with her. Couldn't pay me to do it. Too damn crazy. So what else do you call that?"

Lindsey contemplates that while chewing a mouthful of beef. "Hot, crazy, younger friend that you like enough to admit, with whom you would rather wade through a sea of leeches than sleep with?" he suggests, making them both smile. "I guess 'annoying little sister' fits the bill."

He's trying not to sound jealous, but he's not quite sure he managed it because Eliot gets this _look_ and tells him, "I say, 'like a sister' and 'like a brother' about Hardison, but you and me, I'll never have anything like what we have with _anyone_ else. So stop with the subtle planning their deaths thing because one, they're not taking your place, and two, it ain't that subtle."

Lindsey, who hadn't been planning their deaths, _per se_, more just thinking of ways to break them up, scowled. "I ain't jealous. You can make your own family. It's your life. I mean, it's time you settled down anyway. With an actual apartment and ready-made meals in your freezer and a _TV_ - you don't even watch TV! - and be all domesticated and shit."

"I have a garden on the roof of the building, too," Eliot says, looking bemused. "Actually grew all the vegetables we're eating right now. And Hardison's the one who installed that TV. I get all the sports channels, which is pretty great, even though I usually go to Nate's to watch games with the rest of the crew."

Lindsey gapes at him.

"So yeah, maybe I am domesticated, as you put it," Eliot continues, "but I dunno, I kinda like it. I mean, I've been moving around my whole life, never put down roots, so it feels good to be able to come home to something, and have people who actually care about me."

"I care," Lindsey says reflexively. "So why'd they let you go home injured if they _care_ that much about you?"

"They wanted to take me to the hospital, but I told them I'd be fine. And they trust me to let them know when I'm _not_ fine. That's why they let me go. Trust goes both ways," Eliot says. Then he changes the subject, not wanting to get into yet another argument with his brother about the wisdom of being on a team. "So what have you been up to these days?"

Lindsey shrugs. "Same old. Stayin' low, keepin' an eye out for weird things. Monsters have been acting strange since someone set off the Apocalypse again."

Eliot grunts. Damn people always wanting to start apocalypses. Good thing there are usually people heroic (and stupid) enough to stop them each time. But apocalypses tend to have strange consequences. Last time around there was an exponential increase in demon possession (of the smoky kind, not the corporeal type). "Yeah? Like how?" he asks, wanting to know for future reference, so he can keep an eye out for them and steer the team away from those kinds of cases.

"Werewolves shifting on a new moon, ghouls eating people alive instead of the dead," says Lindsey, "I heard about an arachnae last month. They're supposed to be extinct."

"That is weird," Eliot agrees, spearing a piece of carrot. "Anyone come after you lately?"

Lindsey shrugs. "No one I couldn't take care of," he says. "Retrieved a holy gecko the other week."

"Hate those things. So you've been busy?" asks Eliot, and takes a sip from his beer.

Lindsey chews. "Yeah. You?"

"Yep." Eliot swallows.

"Pass the ketchup."

"My pot roast don't need ketchup."

"Pass the ketchup."

"Fine. Here's your damn ketchup!"

They continue eating in awkward silence until they risk a glance at each other at the exact same time and burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry, man," Lindsey chuckles, "I didn't mean ta start a fight. I'm just worried about ya. I mean, I get it. This life gets lonely, and it's human nature to want to stick with people like yourself. I'm happy for you, El. I really am. They seem like..." Here, he breaks off, not wanting to say "good people," because they're not really saints. "They seem decent. In a criminally honorable way," he says, carefully choosing his words out of habit.

Eliot snorts. "Criminally honorable. That's us alright," he says. "Ya know, you're welcome to actually meet them. Instead of stalkin' us like you're doin' now."

"I'm not stalkin' you, I'm watching your back," Lindsey scowls, "There's a difference."

"Yeah, in one, you got binoculars, and in the other, you got binoculars _and_ a camera."

Lindsey makes a face. "Dude. I didn't hafta come tonight, ya know?"

"Couldn't stay away, could ya?" Eliot teases and reaches out to ruffle his brother's hair. "Worrywart."

His brother ducks and rolls his eyes but doesn't disagree. It's not like Eliot could stay away either if he thought Lindsey might need him. He has been known to drop everything (even once in the middle of a war zone and another time in the middle of a date with a very beautiful and well-endowed woman) at a moment's notice to rush to get him out of trouble.

Lindsey gets up and takes both of their plates to the sink. "In the mood for music?" he asks. "Or you wanna get some sleep?"

Eliot grins. "What do you think?" He grabs his guitar and sits down. "Got any new songs?"

* * *

><p>AN: Yeah, I sneaked some <em>Supernatural<em> in there at the end. Just a little bit. Tiny little bit. I couldn't help it. I'm still a mad, raving fangirl.

I refer to Roper as "that tiny Californian" because Urijah Faber (the actor) is known as "The California Kid." I thought of Gail being a Healer because seriously, Eliot, don't seek out sex when you're hurt. Not a good idea, dude. The knobby green vegetable that Lindsey avoids is a bitter melon. Those things are nasty. Blegh.

Lindsey acts all bitchy in this one to set things up for the next story in this verse (which also explains the slight Sophie-bashing a couple of chapters back). It's coming very soon…as soon as I finish it. I'm about a chapter away from that.

Thanks for reading this story, everyone, reviewers and lurkers (I see you!) alike.

* * *

><p>Now on to personalized thanks:<p>

To Harm Marie, Saides, Jesco123, Touch of the Wind, and Mikafan -

Thank you for your continued support and feedback. I'm really grateful that I have so many followers of this particular non-pairing crossover. It seems like most people want to read pairing (slash/non-slash) fics (that's mainly what's getting written, anyway), so I wasn't sure how this would be taken. I'm glad you all seem to like it. Thank you so, so much!

To Partypony, who is special because she doesn't have an account yet insists on reviewing like someone who has an account -

How's that for a hint to "get an account so that I can stop embarrassing myself in front of a multitude of people by writing silly things in a public space and instead embarrass myself in front of one person in a PRIVATE message"? Not that I mind much; most of my readers already know how Parkerifically unbalanced my brain is. ;D And now, beginning at the top of your review: Hello, you again. Boy, am I glad that I didn't disappoint. I hope this one doesn't either. I don't think anyone has written twinfic after "Dead End" or Eliot reacting to Lindsey's new hand. If anyone has, I hope none of that story's readers find me, or alternately, that none of my readers ever come across it. I'm not sure "Hand? Hand?" will hold up very well next to it, although I do admit my version has a certain comedic value that my screwed-up brain finds worth typing and submitting as a proper story... The reaction to the sign: The way Angel jerks Lindsey around is one of the reasons I liked Lindsey and didn't like Angel (and my actor bias has no bearing on the matter, since I happen to like David Boreanaz as Booth). So I thought I'd make Lindsey think what I was thinking when I saw that scene and then put a Lindsey-like wording to it. Projecting? Perhaps, but don't tell me you didn't think it was childish! After they "made up," too. Lindsey coming back to mess with Angel's head was kinda malicious, though, I'll give you that... Lindsey has telekinesis in Season 5, but I like to think that he might have picked some tricks up while working for WR&H. Eliot might be able to kick seven red-blooded asses very, very quickly, but Lindsey can choke them all without having to touch them in about the same time. :D ... Eliot as a war god came from a prompt I read about the Leverage characters being deities from various mythologies (I think). I thought, well, duh. War god. And that was that. I didn't specify because I'm not as up on my Asian deities as I should be... Yep, Caritas mention, but I have a bigger idea for that one. Keep an eye out for it (of course, if my ADD doesn't get in the way of the future existence of such a story)... RE Evil Hand: I have only one response to that one: "Charlie!" Favorite Chris Kane scene ever... Yes, Eliot is bossy, and he is the older sibling (by twelve whole minutes). He will regret being so bossy over the years in my next story (how's that for a tease? Huh? Yeah, good spoiler, huh?).. Cheesy review? Yes, Poesie likes cheese, just like Bruce the plot bunny likes carrot cookie brownies. And see? Yet another good reason for getting an account here: Poesie will be more likely to write notes back if Partypony does. She may even condescend to refer to herself in the _first person_. And then PMs will get broken up into paragraphs instead of big huge chunks like this one (I'm doing this to save space so I don't mislead readers into thinking the story is twice as long as it really is). Hehe, but really, no pressure. It's hard to have a life if you have a FF.N account. Trust me. *pokes*... Yes, you're right. Blushing goo is indeed such a rare phenomenon that one must assume that when one refers to oneself as a puddle of goo, and then proceeds to blush, the individual involved must have returned to human form for that feat... You resemble that tranquilizer comment, do you? Well, I defiantly (definitely) think that you should tranq everyone within a five-mile radius. You might get more sleep that way. That's what Parker would do, anyway... Hehe, remember, longwinded reviews beget longwinded replies. Thanks for your wonderful reviews, PP!


End file.
